Dangimere, ST RPG By Jeff Bilger
                       PD Disk 749a & 749b
                   Reviewed by James Jillians

Another contender for the Worst Game Of All Time award.  Do not
get this game!

That said, Dangimere is a two-disk Public Domain RPG from a
budding young American programmer; six years of loving creation
and improvement have gone into it. A click on the appropriate item
in the opening menu reveals the plot:  It is the beginning of
fall, (English translation: Autumn) and you are a student near the
end of a university term. One evening you decide to "fry" by
having a party in your digs. Your friends Wayne and Erin bring
along a load of beer and you put on your favourite soccer video.
Acid! Scott brings along his drugs and you settle down for a fun
evening of getting out of it, man.

A short while later you start to feel a little claustrophobic and
decide to pop out for a breath of fresh air. Whilst staggering
around the campus you notice a strange blue glow emanating from
the Archaeology building. You decide to check it out, and after
pulling yourself through a second story window, you find yourself
in the 'Ancient Civilization Room'. There awaiting you is a mystic
blue crystal on a rune-covered pedestal. Fascinated by its
hypnotic glow, you place your hands on it and fall into a deep,
deep sleep...

You awaken to find yourself being kicked in the guts by an armour-
clad, beg your pardon, armor-clad ruffian for no apparent reason.
Stranger still, you are somewhere in the deep and distant past in
a strange medieval city that you don't recognise. The one thing
you know is that the place is called Dangimere, and that's only
because it says it on the disk label.  Presumably, the idea of the
game is to escape back to your own time and find out what happened
to you. A more likely turn of events, however, is that you will
get so fed up with the game's lack of playability, many bugs and
endless boring statistical fights, that you'll be quite happy to
let the so-called hero you play rot, leaving the 'mystery'
unsolved.

Well, that's what I did anyway.

Before you criticize me for my poor play-testing attitude, I shall
describe some of the events leading up to the point at which I
finally threw in the rag. Perhaps then you will forgive me.

The game starts with some introductory pictures, and then a menu
screen, for some reason called the "Lochsheian Portal". Here you
can read the story (although you need not put yourself through the
agony since I've already told it), roll up a new character, save
the character or Enter The City. So far so good - the game is but
lulling you into a false sense of security.

The game's system is a blatant copy of Dungeons and Dragons with a
bit of Dungeon Master 3D viewing thrown in for good measure (and I
mean a bit, the 3D view is a very small box in the top right-hand
corner of the screen). Your newly rolled character has the normal
thrilling Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom values
(although no attempt is made to explain what function these
perform) and he/she starts with a full complement of Magic and Hit
Points. Various menus can be called up to tell you how many keys,
gems, torches and coins you have, what sort of armour you have on
and so on. The first menu you need to call up is to switch the
sound effects off, because they don't work if you are using a
floppy drive.

Your character can be a mage, fighter or thief, although they all
seem to be as good as each other at fighting and spell-casting (I
don't know where thieving comes in). You can plod through the maze
of featureless grey-coloured walls using the arrow keys.  When you
pass a doorway, a message pops up, at which point you can turn
around to find an empty house, or very occasionally a shop, temple
or other special location graphically portrayed.  The city
contains places where you can buy many sorts of armour and weapons
- however fighting is so easy that you soon have enough money to
go straight for the top of the range and ignore the rest. To get
healed after you first few fights you can visit a temple or dine
on a pointless multitude of different foods at the tavern.

One thing you will have noticed by this time is the fighting
system. Every few seconds (this happens literally too often!) a
picture of a baddie in a black robe pops up in the 3D display -
yes, the same one each time. You are told who you are fighting, at
first this will be one bandit(s). You are then presented by a
choice of actions - fighting, casting spells, doing a battle cry
or running away. A few button presses later, the enemy will lose a
suitable amount of Hit Points and after a few repetitions will
invariably die.

After every few enemies bite the dust you go up a level. This
restores and augments your Magic and Hit Points as well as adding
to your primary statistics. This happens so often, however that
you become practically invincible because as soon as you lose a
few Hit points they all come back again.

There are 6 different spells, but all seem to do the same thing -
automatically killing one enemy. They have the same chance of
succeeding and are only different because some cost more Magic
Points than others.

Every time you gain a level you are rewarded with two new spells,
although numbers 7 and above do not even have names, and 10 and
above are not castable because there aren't enough number keys!

As your character gets more experienced, the streets become
populated by nastier monsters, and in greater numbers. After 15
minutes of exploring you start to come across gangs of 50 or so
green dragons or 200 goblins. The fights are just as easy but they
take FAR longer because you have to kill each and every creature
separately. Then you become so strong the computer runs out of
names for your foes so you face ever increasing numbers blank
spaces!

Somewhere in the city is a castle inhabited by a king. He promises
to give you a quest once you are experienced enough.  Apparently,
being able to wipe out 100 greater demons and achieving levels of
strength and intelligence a thousand times as high as those you
started with does not qualify you.

Perhaps there is another way to get the required experience? I
simply couldn't be bothered to find out by spending ten minutes in
a fight with the dreaded " "s, pressing the same key over and over
again every time I met a band of enemies, as I explored the
infested streets.

I am sure that there are dungeons and other scenarios beyond the
city, but I cannot imagine what sort of threat your god-like
character might face there. I do not have any desire to find out.

I would suggest that a hardened RPG fan might enjoy this game, but
I would be lying. My message to all is this :

            For your own health do not get this game.

                     FUN FACTO... Forget it!



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